Sinister Anti-Gun Promotion At Capital Building Exposed

By Jason Orsek

15 Jan 2015

There are many folks that don't like seeing guns. Even though they may claim to be "strong 2A supporters" at the very moment they see a citizen with a firearm, the story changes. How many times have we heard, "Yes, I have guns, lots of guns! I shoot, I hunt, I can protect my family, BUT sometimes it's not the right time or place to have a firearm." Yet they claim to be STRONG 2A supporters.

Let's take a closer look at the statehouse in Austin. I personally have been chin deep in the gun rights movement in Texas since 2013 when CATI started pushing for full State recognition of our unalienable right to keep and bear arms. I have been to meetings with legislators and other government officials, and have been there with boots on the ground, in front of the scene and behind it, and everything I write here is coming from firsthand experience.

To understand where we are right now and what led up to these recent events, let us take a step back in time and cover some history.

The State Preservation Board is the state’s department in charge of the Texas State Capital Building, and the attorneys for the SPB have responded to me directly regarding my request for information on carrying a firearm on the grounds and inside the building. There is no "rule" against the firearms as per the state agency that operates the capital. Yet, apparently, there are folks under the dome that don't like it and have put pressure on "someone" to suppress our political speech of openly carrying firearms.

Jason Orsek - CATI Texas Vice President

I was one of the four original Texans that walked into the statehouse with my Scar 17 across my back on July 4th, 2013. Although I held a letter clearly stating that there was no rule against it, someone didn't like it and ordered the DPS troopers to remove us from the building. None of the involved troopers could produce any law, statute, or rule concerning out actions, or even a written request for us not to do it. All they could say was “It is not allowed.” and that we could open carry “Outside only.” After exiting the building and as we stood at the outside door of the capital debating DPS, citizens walked right past us and entered the building with a CHL. Someone did not want those rifles inside the building....

As time passed we had rallies at the capital and stayed outside and DPS continued to claim no rifles were allowed inside, yet they could not cite any source for this infringement on our right to bear arms. Then we came to a realization that CHL holders were allowed inside with their handguns, so surely a pre-1899 black powder revolver would be ok! According to the Texas penal code, it is not even considered a firearm, and is less regulated than a pocketknife!

Mr. Gary Hays entered the building with his BP. Again he suffered the same fate we did with our rifles. He made it in for a short time and then was asked to vacate. DPS was very nervous about this and treated it like a huge ordeal. They took Mr. Hays down into the basement to question him alone. I intervened because I was his official caregiver. I insisted that either I was going along, or else they were going to have to replace me with a RN or arrest me. I was allowed to stay with my "patient" and observe everything. It was pretty much what you can imagine, no one knew what to do or how to handle it because no laws were broken, but someone obviously didn't like it and hey, the troopers were” just doing their jobs” right? Eventually, Mr. Hays was released and escorted off the property. They released his black powder revolver to me and instructed me not to come back on the property. The oddity of it all was this: I had my loaded and chambered Glock 19 on me the entire time. Now I had a CHL, but they didn't know that because they never bothered to ask and they shuffled me around the metal detectors. Don't ask, don't tell, right? I was legal either way.

Then things got even more interesting ...

After a quadriplegic managed to legally enter the building with a unloaded black powder revolver , this silent somebody pulled some strings in order to get even more illegitimate gun control going at the statehouse.

The readers of this blog know the events that took place after that, namely the arrests of Holcomb, followed by Scott and Gary .....

After this, they would allow no firearms, or pre-1899 black powder guns on the Capitol Grounds.

Dova with a BP and Grisham arrested with a toy gun as others carried rifles not 20 feet from them....

Tom and Dewlash....

Every gun arrest case at the capital was later dismissed as the prosecutor could find nothing with which to charge the alleged “offenders”.....yet DPS still enforces this law that does not exist, and all because someone doesn't like guns in that building...

It was, and still is, a mess, but one thing was growing: gun control at the statehouse by someone with the political clout to have nonexistent laws enforced by arrest (kidnapping?).

Now we are up to date as of January 13th, 2015...

Gun activists have been playing nice and staying off the grounds (Though any CHL holder can carry a handgun right into the building, no questions asked).

In the past two years, Texas gun activists have made HUGE headway towards defeating these antiquated gun laws and making it harder to regulate firearms on the grounds (that are already legal)

Then on January 13th, 2015, something powerful happened. Known gun rights activists entered the building without firearms but instead heavily armed with signatures. Signatures from sorted voting pools and organized to target each legislator.

One senator was approached that is not in support of HB195 (the bill that would remove the wording in the Texas State Constitution that was enacted directly after the civil war that allows the Legislature “by law, to regulate the wearing of arms, with a view to prevent crime.”) and voiced his opinion. As expected, some words were exchanged and after approximately 45 seconds of feelings being expressed, the gun activist left the office.

Now here is where I believe it gets even more interesting…

The very next day, first rattle out of the hat, they pass a rule that legislators can install a "panic button" in their offices. The new law also gives representatives more discretion about who can enter their public offices.

So now we have a unique situation. Apparently in 100+ years of voting age Texans voicing an opinion utilizing their 1A rights, despite the thousands of disagreements before this one that were far more heated...now, all of a sudden, they need a panic button? So now, when a legal voting age Texan with a CHL enters HIS statehouse to express his opinion to a legislator that was voted in for his district, and dares to say something the legislator doesn't want to hear, they can call in the DPS to remove or arrest him? To disarm him? To strip him of his CHL which is in itself is a perverse version of his UNALIENABLE RIGHT that was already taken from him, and sold back to him at a premium, via the CHL program? Now those who are supposed to work for us, have even more power to prevent them from hearing our opinions and problems that they are elected to address?

There you have it folks. Somebody in that house doesn't like guns, and they have managed to get unlicensed carry of rifles off the complex, managed to get the carry of non-firearms (according to Texas penal code section 46.01 (3) a&b) off the public grounds completely, without passing a law or an amendment to the Texas Constitution which is what it would lawfully require, and they have now achieved the first step of getting the coveted CHL holders that speak out removed from the complex and stripped of even the state approved perversion of their right... This doesn’t look good to me.

Be mindful what you say.....Somebody in that house doesn't like guns and they just breached the last threshold of bearing arms we had in our own capitol...the CHL...